In this study, the refinement of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs) derived from chemical vapor decomposition is investigated. An ultrasonic pretreatment method is employed to disentangle carbon and metal impurities intertwined with MWCNTs. The pretreated MWCNTs exhibit a marginal decrease in C–O/C = O content from 8.9 to 8.8%, accompanied by a 2.5% increase in sp3 carbon content, indicating a mildly destructive pretreatment approach. Subsequently, selective oxidation by CO2 and hydrochloric acid etching are utilized to selectively remove carbon impurities and residual metal, respectively. The resulting yield of intact MWCNTs is approximately 85.65 wt.%, signifying a 19.91% enhancement in the one-way yield of pristine MWCNTs. Notably, the residual metal content experiences a substantial reduction from 9.95 ± 2.42 wt.% to 1.34 ± 0.06 wt.%, representing a 15.68% increase in the removal rate. These compelling findings highlight the potential of employing a mild purification process for MWCNTs production, demonstrating promising application prospects.

Isotropic pitch-based carbon fiber was successfully prepared from tetrahydrofuran-soluble fraction of coal tar pitch cocarbonization with petrolatum by air-blowing. The effects of reaction temperature and time, amount of petrolatum added on the composition and spinning properties of resultant pitches were investigated. It indicated that petrolatum could effectively improve the softening point, aromaticity, hydrogen content and molecular weight of the resultant pitches by promoting cross-linking and dehydrogenation polymerization reactions at low air-blowing temperature. Moreover, more aliphatic and naphthenic structures had been introduced into resultant pitches as addition of petrolatum and also inhibited the generation of quinoline-insoluble particles. The obtained green fibers were facile to be stabilized and carbonized and the resultant carbon fibers showed fully isotropic and finer, uniform diameter with smooth surface and higher tensile strength of up to 0.92 GPa. It provided a facile chemical modification method for isotropic pitch-based carbon fiber production.

Authenticity is an important topic in business activities and society at large. Sustainability management and marketing activities are required as consumers become more interested in society. The consumer evaluation of brand authenticity is a crucial factor in a brand’s reputation and long-term growth, which affects brand loyalty, electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and purchase behavior. With this latest trend, luxury brands are paying attention to sustainability activities, but consumer confidence in the sustainability of luxury brands is still low. Experts emphasize that building trust with customers by promising authenticity is a key challenge. Meanwhile, luxury brands are actively communicating with consumers through SNS, such as Instagram. Social media marketing directly and indirectly influences brand authenticity, as well as purchase intentions and eWOM. Nevertheless, there is little exposure to sustainability activities in the social media accounts of luxury brands. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the sustainability activities on the social media of luxury brands and brand authenticity, as well as the effects of brand authenticity on eWOM and purchase intention. For this study, we conducted an online survey targeting individuals with ages of 20–30 years and who are highly interested in society while actively using social media. The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS 21.0 software package. The main finding of this study reveals that consumers are more aware of brand authenticity when they see an Instagram post that includes messages about sustainability rather than a post without any such messages. In addition, brand authenticity has positive effects on eWOM and purchase intention. These findings suggest that sustainability marketing by luxury brands leads to positive consumer response, and the broadcasting of messages about sustainability via social media is effective for the marketing strategy of luxury brands.

One of the top tourist destinations in Korea during 2014 was Dongdaemun market, which is a representative traditional market that provides reasonably priced, fashionable products. Already constituting 43.1% of Korea’s foreign tourists, the number of Chinese tourists is expected to reach 14.88 million by 2020 at an average annual growth rate of 19.8%. The most important way to improve customer equity is by understanding a store’s attributes, so this study aims to investigate the effects of Dongdaemun fashion market’s store attributes on customer equity. A survey was conducted among Chinese tourists and structural equation modeling were used to test the hypotheses. The main findings of this study are: Store attributes appear to have an impact on all of the three drivers of customer equity. Value equity has a positive impact on the customer lifetime value (CLV). Also, brand equity and relationship equity were identified as having positive impacts on revisiting intention, regardless of the type of shopping mall. Based on these findings, we discuss implications for developing the customer equity of Dongdaemun’s traditional markets.

In 2015, the size of China’s cross-border shopping market was 97.3 billion dollars. The market increased by 63% during the last 5 years (Mun, 2016), and is expected to rise to 220 billion dollars by the year 2020. According to the e-commerce export trends of the Korea customs administration, in August 2015, the largest exporter was China (42%) and the largest export was clothing (52%) (Song, 2016). Accordingly, Korean corporations and brands are focusing on Haitao (海淘族, who enjoy cross-border online shopping) and proceeding to build customized websites and mobile platforms. Even though China's cross-border shopping is consistently growing, insufficient information is available to Chinese consumers. Hence, this research study is based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and analyzes the factors that influence the behavior of Chinese consumers in cross-border shopping the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The objective of this research is to identify how shopping values, subjective norms, attitudes, and perceived behavior controls influence the behavioral intention of Chinese consumers toward cross-border shopping. The respondents of this study were 20 to 30-year-old Chinese who live in first and second-tier cities in China, and have experienced cross-border shopping. Samples were collected through an online survey website, Sojump (问卷星), and 205 valid questionnaire responses were received. Reliability analysis, factor analysis and SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) were used to validate the measurement model and test the hypotheses with SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 18.0. The findings reveal that the utilitarian values and perceived behavioral controls of Chinese consumers have a positive effect on their attitudes toward cross-border shopping. Furthermore, their behavioral intentions were affected by their attitudes, and their perceived behavioral controls in cross-border shopping excluded subjective norms. The results of the study have implications for Korean fashion retailers who plan to exploit Chinese markets and for the formation of a theoretical basis for cross-border shopping.